Yesterdays higher performance in all hog contracts except the Dec occurred on moderate volume of 44,000 with open interest rising by 1,000 cars. Consider this to be new long specs entering the fray with hedgers taking on the other side. If youre a hog producer and youre not actively hedging a portion of production through next fall youre passing up an prime opportunity in my opinion. The USDA quarterly hog & pig comes out Dec 22nd which is just two weeks from Friday. The report will be released during trading at 11:00 AM Chicago time along with a monthly cold storage report and a monthly cattle-on-feed report. All of these reports (except bellies in the cold storage) are expected to be negative toward price action. In the near term fundamentals, this weeks kill is expected to equal last weeks, currently estimated at 2.533 million pigs. We get another look at weights tomorrow morning. Consider the weakness in the Dec/Feb bull spread a warning sign to not get bullish. Mixed is the early call.

I have built a sizable position in the Feb on the short side. Have orders in to sell more at 71.70 and 72.00

Dewey